Europe Puts Hooligans on Notice

Europe Puts Hooligans on Notice

Article excerpt

When the final whistle blows at soccer matches across Europe, it
often serves as a signal for a small core of ardent fans to take
over center stage. Clad in their team colors and pumped full of
alcohol, these spectators go on rampages against supporters of rival
clubs in bloody urban warfare, euphemistically known as the "third
halftime."

For this year's European soccer championships, hosted by Belgium
and the Netherlands, authorities are taking unprecedented measures
against so-called soccer hooligans. And in doing so, Germany and
England - Europe's two leading exporters of this behavior and whose
teams meet on the field Saturday - are testing the limits of civil
liberties. Both countries have passed new laws to ban known rowdies
from traveling to the games. Germany has sent squads of police to
keep hooligans from crossing the borders. And British officials say
they will cut off the welfare benefits of any unemployed workers
spotted at the Euro 2000 matches.

Earlier this year, two Liverpool fans were stabbed to death by
local fans in Istanbul. When English and Turkish clubs met last
month in Denmark, hooligans raged again. Since the Euro 2000
tournament began last weekend, there have been sporadic clashes
between fans and police, despite unusually tight security measures.

Germany has taken the most extreme precautions, changing its
passport law, prohibiting hundreds of known rowdies from traveling
abroad, and stationing a thousand police on the border with Holland
and Belgium, where there are usually no passport controls.

"We support these measures because we're still standing under the
shadow of France '98," says Michael Novak of the German Soccer
Federation, referring to the near-fatal beating of a French
policeman by German hooligans during the last World Cup. "It can't
happen again that German citizens abroad behave in such a way and
injure people life-threateningly."

This time around, says Mr. Novak, the preparations have been more
thorough.

Berlin recently amended the German passport law, making a
hooligan's violation of a travel ban a criminal act. Prosecutors no
longer have to prove whether or not that person committed a crime
while abroad. Of course, German authorities cannot physically
prevent a known hooligan from leaving the country. But several
hundred violent fans have been personally warned by officers and are
being required to report periodically to local police stations
during the soccer tournament.

The rise of hooliganism has spurred police from different
European nations to work together much more closely than in the
past. In February, the interior ministries of Germany, Belgium, and
the Netherlands hammered out a special security plan for Euro 2000,
including the presence of German policemen in the host countries.
"The point isn't that security dominates sports," said German
Interior Ministry official Rdiger Kass. …